Saturday, May 17, 2008

Oh, the Grading! The Grading!

Carey, Andrew. “Hamlet: The Opera.” Shakespearean Screenplay—the Film Pitch and its Accompanying Justification. 1 May 2008.The sheer volume of grading has kept me from posting to the blog as much as I’d like. It’s overwhelming, if you want to know.

But, when the pressure gets too great, I just think back on any one of the stunning film pitches I was privileged to hear in my Shakespeare and Film class. They were all very interesting, and (though one of them was set among high school students) none of them was set in high school. Thanks, everyone! Hurrah!

Today, I’ve been thinking of the intriguing casting decision Andrew Carey made in his pitch for a Hamlet opera (really, it seemed more like a rock opera): The guys from Flight of the Conchords as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

It just works perfectly, doesn’t it?

[For those who don’t know them, they have the perfect blend of cluelessness and sagacity . . . well, clulessness, at least . . . for the roles. I’d love to see them in a production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Soppard.

Now . . . let’s write some songs for them. What rhymes with “My most honored lord”?

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Bardfilmis normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilmis a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:

KJ is a professor of English and Literature at a small Christian liberal arts college. In addition to courses entitled “Shakespeare” and “Introduction to Shakespeare,” he teaches a course called “Shakespeare and Film.” Recently, he developed a course titled “Modern Shakespearean Fiction.” Shakespeare is also integrated into nearly all his other courses, including courses on the Literature of Food and the Literature of Humor. Additionally, he is the author of Bardfilm: The Shakespeare and Film Microblog. But you may have known that already.